August 9, 2023
.jpeg)
Step right into the front seat of our DeLorean, buckle up, and brace yourself for an exhilarating journey into the realms of the digital art revolution leaving the wine and cheese receptions of dusty galleries behind; we're on the autobahn of digital canvases and algorithmic masterpieces.
Welcome, fellow cyberspace explorer, to the wild, wild west of art in the age of AI, where the neon glow of the Matrix meets the romantic light of the Sistine Chapel!
Artificial Intelligence, the cool new kid on the block completely reshaping the digital art world. Arguably as influential as Picasso did in his heyday, as ground-breaking as Da Vinci during the Renaissance, and as provocative as Banksy on a politically charged graffiti spree.
Generative art, the AI technique of choice, is akin to handing a paintbrush to a robot, overloading it with the totality of artistic human history, and watching as it brings a jpeg to life.
The artist sets the groundwork with a prompt, a demand, an idea articulated in images or words. The AI goes to work. Neural networks mix and toss artistic styles and then delivers the machine’s interpretation of the creative input. An enigmatic Mona Lisa draped in Warhol's electric pop art panache. A visually intriguing, unexpected mix, synthesized in seconds from thousands of years of visual human history, ingested mostly without clear permission by AI models.
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), another method du jour, resemble a face-off between two AI gladiators in an art coliseum, throwing down fake images and spotting real ones. The artistry lies in the struggle, and like a Pokémon battle, their abilities level up with each round, refining the realism of their creations.
As we plunge deeper into this digital ocean, we confront a key issue: who's the real artist behind AI-generated art? The prompter, the coder, the machine, or the AI system itself? Who indeed bakes the perfect Victoria sponge? The chef, the oven, or the process of baking itself? It's like a riddle from a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
The US Copyright Office has previously denied requests for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) to hold the copyright for an artwork resulting from an algorithm morphing pictures into images with minimal human intervention, a factor that the Copyright Office found problematic.
The decision underlined the vital role the connection between the human mind and creative expression plays in copyright matters. Despite copyright law not having clear provisions for non-human entities, the courts have consistently dismissed cases where animals or divine beings were alleged to possess copyright protections. However, this does not imply that AI-assisted art is entirely ineligible for copyright. If someone was to claim a similar piece of work as a product of their creativity, executed by a machine, the results could be different. As AI technology continues to grow in the art world, the boundaries of this decision may be challenged in the years ahead.
On the upside, AI can democratize the art landscape. It can pave the way for many to unleash their creativity and be more encouraged to pursue art. It can also assist artists in creating new forms of art and expanding boundaries inexpensively.
In the art curation world, AI could be the Sherlock Holmes of overlooked talent and undiscovered styles. Designing exhibitions, predicting upcoming trends, and making informed acquisition decisions; it's like having a mega-brained sidekick who can calculate the last digit of Pi while helping you curate and promote the next viral exhibition.
Artists will have to adapt their practices to accommodate AI very soon. And while for some it's a leap akin to Neo in "The Matrix," choosing the red pill and diving headfirst into an unimaginable world of possibility. For most, however, it’s unlikely they will swap their paint-splattered smocks for coding manuals and machine learning algorithms any time soon.
AI has the potential to master the art of analyzing existing masterpieces, conjuring up new ones, and even predicting the next blockbuster piece. Imagine strolling into an art market, and the algorithm has already picked out your favorite pieces. It could lead to custom-curated art exhibitions, finely-tuned marketing strategies for art events, and a paradigm shift in the art world. Harry Potter's magic pales in comparison.
Yet, in the immortal words of Uncle Ben from Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." We must tread with care to ensure that the new AI-driven order respects human creativity and diversity and that it doesn't propagate harmful stereotypes.
As we pioneer this exciting frontier, let's not forget art's true power lies in its capacity to ignite thoughts, arouse emotions, and instigate change. AI may be the new darling, but the beating heart of art remains ever-human. As Picasso once said, “Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.” No matter its origin, traditional or AI-generated, the magic of art lies in its unique ability to connect us to our shared human experience.
So, with our DeLorean now parked in the future of art collecting, let’s remember: art isn't about the tools; it's about the vision and creativity that fuels it. The essence of art is the human spirit, timeless and eternal. Our art may be becoming digital, but its soul remains profoundly human.
